UX Developer at Thalmic Labs

Location: Kitchener, ON
Position: UX Developer
Company: Thalmic Labs

About us

Thalmic is a hardware + software company building exciting technologies that will shape the future of human-computer interaction, backed by a world-class team of investors including Spark Capital and Intel Capital.

We announced our first product, the Myo gesture control armband, in 2013, and pre-sold over 10,000 units in the first 48 hours. Myo is now shipping worldwide, and has gone on to win numerous awards, such as Digital Trends’ “Best of CES 2014” Award for Cool Tech.

Day-to-day, we encourage unconventional thinking, thrive on great communication and debate, and know how to move quickly. We advocate a healthy lifestyle and promote continuous learning and improvement. Most of all, we set high standards and ambitious goals, and we’re passionate about building the best, most impactful products.

About you

You’re an accomplished software engineer with a true eye for design and a passion for crafting user experiences that are engaging and intuitive. You love working closely with both designers and engineers, and thoroughly understand how to bridge the unique challenges of each discipline. You’re thoughtful, creative, and adept at quickly pulling together prototypes to test and iterate on new ideas and designs, and you’re excited to use your talent to help us push the boundaries of human-computer interaction.

What you’ll do

• Implement beautiful, engaging, and intuitive user interfaces and experiences for a revolutionary new wearable computing system
• Work closely with UX and engineering teams to take designs and rapidly iterate from concept to prototype to final product
• Write robust, re-usable software components
• Develop software tools and strategies to facilitate rapid prototyping and iteration

What you need

• Strong coding skill in C++, Java, or other high-level language
• An understanding of user-centred design principles and standards across multiple platforms (web, mobile, desktop)
• Familiarity with design and user research techniques such as storyboarding, wireframes, and usability tests
• A sharp eye for detail (you should know the difference between 4 and 5 pixel margins!)
• Experience skinning and adding interactivity to components, including animations and motion
• Proven ability to quickly learn new languages, frameworks, and platforms
• Proficiency with a VCS (preferably git)
• Degree in computer science, engineering, or equivalent (in lieu of degree, minimum four years of relevant work experience)
• A portfolio showcasing your strength in creating interactive prototypes

Bonus points for

• Experience with the Qt framework and QML-based UIs
• Experience implementing UIs across a broad range of form factors and input methods
• Experience working on a product that combines both software and hardware
• Proficiency with other programming or scripting languages
• Relevant personal projects and open source work

Apply via links at Thalmic Labs.

Senior UX Designer at TextNow

Location: Waterloo, ON
Position: Senior UX Designer
Company: TextNow

The telecom industry has far too long been dominated by the big, the bureaucratic and the unimaginative. Now is the time for someone to take this industry on with something better.

We are changing the industry by providing what others cannot: a better user experience, better customer service, continual innovation, and most importantly — transparent pricing.

The TextNow Design team is currently seeking an exceptional UX Designer to help craft the vision for TextNow’s user experience. You will be responsible for creating intuitive and beautiful digital products that meet both user and business needs. We’re looking for a user-centric designer to help take great ideas from the whiteboard, through development, and into the hands of millions of people.

What You’ll Do:

• Advocate for our users, obsessing over ways to make their experience better.
• Utilize qualitative & quantitative data to inform design.
• Push creativity and discover new ways to solve problems elegantly.
• Clearly communicate design rationale, explaining choices to product stakeholders.
• Refine existing products with a user-centric design approach.

Requirements

Who you are:

• You have a proven track record of shipping successful products and features.
• You have an online portfolio demonstrating experience designing intuitive, user-centred design solutions.
• You have strong and clean visual design sense.
• You have a degree in a design related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• You have 3+ years experience designing mobile or web based applications.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience with A/B testing, analytics, marketing automation, and lifecycle campaigns.
• Experience with usability testing and user research.
• Ability to work and communicate in a technical environment.
• Experience designing across multiple platforms (Web, iOS, Android, Windows, & Mac OSX).
• Demonstrated passion for design with personal projects.

Benefits:

• Impactful work
• TextNow-powered smartphone
• Competitive total compensation package
• Catered breakfast and lunch
• Professional development
• Fitness center on site, games room
• Multiple social events (milestones celebrations, escape rooms, rock climbing)

To Apply

Apply online at the TextNow website.

Motion UX Designer at Thalmic Labs

Location: Kitchener, ON
Position: Motion UX Designer
Company: Thalmic Labs

About us

Thalmic is a hardware + software company building exciting technologies that will shape the future of human-computer interaction, backed by a world-class team of investors including Spark Capital and Intel Capital.

We announced our first product, the Myo gesture control armband, in 2013, and pre-sold over 10,000 units in the first 48 hours. Myo is now shipping worldwide, and has gone on to win numerous awards, such as Digital Trends’ “Best of CES 2014” Award for Cool Tech.

Day-to-day, we encourage unconventional thinking, thrive on great communication and debate, and know how to move quickly. We advocate a healthy lifestyle and promote continuous learning and improvement. Most of all, we set high standards and ambitious goals, and we’re passionate about building the best, most impactful products.

About You

You are a storyteller, weaving motion and movement into user interfaces to bring them to life in thoughtful, memorable, and engaging ways. You love the challenge of simplifying complexity and delighting users with the unexpected, while defining new paradigms of user interactions and experiences. You are looking to make an impact and see wearable technology as the industry to do just that.

What You’ll Do

• Create novel and engaging UI interactions, animations, and transitions for a variety of platforms that help establish a motion design language for Thalmic products.
• Deliver patterns, best practices and guidance on animation and transitions that help elevate interactions and reinforce brand personality.
• Contribute to the overall vision and user strategy for Thalmic products, from concept exploration through implementation, working closely with UX and software engineers to ensure designs are successfully brought to life.
• Collaborate on all aspects of visual design within the company (web, UI, print, etc.)

What you need

• An impressive portfolio that includes motion and interaction in game, film/video, web or mobile contexts.
• 3+ years of relevant industry experience
• Expertise in principles of animation for user interface design and for multi-platform solutions
• A strong acumen for user experience design and how motion design influences UI and interaction design (and vice versa).
• Degree in graphic / motion design / animation or a related field
• Master skills in industry-relevant tools such as Adobe After Effects, Adobe CSS, Core Composer, Flash, Origami and 3D software (Maya, Cinema 4D, etc.).

Bonus points for

• 3D modelling experience
• Visual design experience for web, mobile, and/or desktop interfaces
• Experience conducting user research
• Videography and editing experience

Apply via links at Thalmic Labs.

Mobile UX Designer at Thalmic Labs

Location: Kitchener, ON
Position: Mobile UX Designer
Company: Thalmic Labs

About us

Thalmic is a hardware + software company building exciting technologies that will shape the future of human-computer interaction, backed by a world-class team of investors including Spark Capital and Intel Capital.

We announced our first product, the Myo gesture control armband, in 2013, and pre-sold over 10,000 units in the first 48 hours. Myo is now shipping worldwide, and has gone on to win numerous awards, such as Digital Trends’ “Best of CES 2014” Award for Cool Tech.

Day-to-day, we encourage unconventional thinking, thrive on great communication and debate, and know how to move quickly. We advocate a healthy lifestyle and promote continuous learning and improvement. Most of all, we set high standards and ambitious goals, and we’re passionate about building the best, most impactful products.

About You

Joy for you comes from finding ways to reconcile a mix of user insights, product requirements, and technical capabilities into the most compelling and desirable mobile experiences. You craft interaction models, wireframes, and task flows, and know iOS and android mobile guidelines like the back of your hand. You advocate tirelessly on behalf of the user and never pass up an opportunity to solicit their feedback. You are looking to make an impact and see wearable technology as the industry to do just that.

What You’ll Do

• Transform market and end-user insights into intuitive, engaging, and thoughtful mobile experiences, in the form of wireframes, task flows, mockups, and prototypes.
• Help tackle complex and novel interaction design problems with the goal of defining new UX paradigms and interaction guidelines.
• Conduct quantitative and qualitative user research to drive design decisions iteratively throughout the development lifecycle.
• Contribute to the overall vision and user strategy for Thalmic products, from concept exploration through implementation, working closely with UX, product management, and engineers to ensure designs are successfully brought to life.

What you need

• A strong portfolio demonstrating examples of interaction design for mobile experiences, such as annotated wireframes, storyboards, or prototypes, as well as user research activities. It should show a breadth of experience and illustrate the entire design process from ideation through to the final design and clearly state your individual contribution to the project/product.
• Degree in a relevant field (Interaction Design, Human Computer Interaction, etc.)
• 3+ years industry experience designing mobile applications. Experience designing desktop, web, and touch interfaces for consumer products is highly desirable
• Deep knowledge of a mobile best practices and guidelines, including the Apple Human Interface and Android Guidelines
• Demonstrated ability to plan and execute usability tests and other user research, showing how results were analyzed and translated into prioritized recommendations
• Proficiency with industry tools, such as Sketch, Invision, Adobe CSS, or equivalent

Bonus points for

• Being comfortable and open to working in other design areas as needed, including visual design and packaging, and on multiple platforms (web, desktop, etc.)
• Ability to create interactive design prototypes in Axure, Flash, AfterEffects, Maya, HTML, JavaScript, CSS, or other tools

Apply via links at Thalmic Labs.

July 2016: Informal Pub Meetup

In what is now a beloved summer tradition, it’s time to replace energizing presentations and deep UX thoughts with a lighter event befitting the season. Let’s savour that summer feeling with a July uxWaterloo session that features informal talk, some of it even UX-related, and drinks. As befits any self-respecting tradition, we do this every July and August and the laid-back atmosphere and conversations are a welcome addition to any summer schedule. Join us!

And, as has become a yearly tradition, count on hearing from Bob and Mark with an an update on Fluxible 2016, Canada’s UX Festival! You’ve been warned…

Please register for this free event

Thursday July 21, 2016
5:30 to 7:00 pm
Abe Erb Brewing
15 King Street South, Uptown Waterloo
Waterloo, Ontario

UI / UX Designer at Dejero

Location: Waterloo, ON
Position: UI / UX Designer
Company: Dejero

Dejero simplifies the remote acquisition, cloud management, and multiscreen distribution of professional live video over IP. Many of the world’s top broadcasters rely on Dejero for their mobile newsgathering needs.

At Dejero, we like challenges. Solving them is what drives us. It’s what defines us. We listen to our customers. We learn from them. We collaborate with them. We cultivate ideas, test them, and improve upon them. That’s how we innovate. Our culture of collaboration and commitment to customer satisfaction is what sets us apart—and we know how to have fun too. We are privately held and ranked in the top fastest-growing technology companies in North America. If you are up for a rewarding challenge, then Dejero is the place for you.

We are seeking a skilled UI / UX Designer to create beautiful user experiences. The ideal candidate will have a strong sense of how to create engaging experiences, and a passion for bringing products to life. You will be responsible for UI design across web, mobile and touch screen interfaces. You will collaborate closely with product management, engineering, marketing and executive stakeholders.

Key Accountabilities

• Create wireframes, storyboards, user flows, process flows and site maps to effectively communicate interaction and design ideas.
• Execute all visual design stages from concept through implementation with the engineering team.
• Present and defend designs to peers and executive level stakeholders.
• Conduct user research and evaluate user feedback.
• Establish and promote design guidelines, best practices and standards.

Desired Characteristics & Requirements

• A strong portfolio showing excellent graphic/visual design capabilities including typography, composition, layout, colour, presentation of information.  It should illustrate the entire design process from ideation through to the final design.
• Excellent communication skills. Must be able to communicate your ideas throughout the design process to a wide variety of audiences.
• Proficiency in a variety of design software applications such as Sketch, Photoshop, Illustrator, and Invision or other wireframe and mockup software.
• Solid experience in creating wireframes, storyboards, user flows, process flows and site maps.
• Experience with responsive web design principles and practices.
• The ability to bring simplicity and usability to data and workflows.
• Ability to creatively solve complex UI challenges.
• Ability to iterate quickly in an agile environment.
• Bachelor’s degree with 3 – 5 years of experience.
• An understanding of current front-end web technologies like HTML5, CSS3, etc. would be an asset.
• Understanding of common software development practices and common project management practices.

Thank you for your application and interest in joining Dejero. Only candidates selected for an interview will be contacted. Dejero is committed to providing a barrier free application and interview process for all candidates. Should you require accommodations due to a disability or medical condition at any point throughout the hiring process, please contact Human Resources by email at careers@dejero.com or by telephone at 519.772.4824.

Job: UX Designer at Innosphere

Location: Guelph, ON
Position: UX Designer
Company: Innosphere

Who we are?

Established in 1997, Innosphere has been providing superior software solutions for enterprise and small business in an industry that is constantly moving forward. As a member of our Agile Team, you will be part of a thriving, fast-paced, self-directed, collaborative environment where our goal is to achieve 100% client satisfaction. We are looking for talented, high-energy team members to help us create and innovate software solutions. Innosphere is committed to personal and professional development and growth within the organization.

Who we are looking for?

The desired UX Designer will work with product development teams by leading the design of beautiful and intuitive user experiences for software applications including online, mobile and installed. In this role you will provide wireframe mockups and storyboards of the user experience, take the lead role in the design review process, and work closely with users to incorporate feedback into your designs. In addition to the design of the user experience, you will be responsible for the creation and maintenance of a toolkit shared by multiple development teams to create a consistent user experience across multiple products. This position is a 6-month contract.

What are the Core Responsibilities?

• Responsible for the design of the user experience for products created by the Product Delivery team in the Software segment
• Participate in Product Delivery as a member of the cross-functional team and support ongoing work iterations month-to-month
• Create detailed storyboards, mockups, prototypes and communicate designs to product managers and the development team
• Produce and manage cross-browser compliant cascading stylesheets (CSS) for use by the development team
• Establish relationships with Product Managers to obtain client feedback and incorporate into designs
• Schedule meetings with stakeholders to learn both the needs of the business and clients as well as any constraints that may exist including technical ones from engineering
• Work closely with the QA team to ensure that your CSS files support the authorized browsers for the product you are working on
• You will help the team document the style guide as changes to the toolkit occur.

What skills and qualifications we are looking for?

• Degree in Human Computer Interaction, Interactive Media, Graphic Design (or related field) is a plus (not a requirement)
• 3+ years of experience in the design of web applications (SaaS)
• Experience working within an Agile software development team
• Experience designing for Mobile platforms including iPhone, iPad
• A well documented portfolio that showcases samples of design work
• Strong knowledge of web based technologies HTML5, Sass, Less, Modernizr, CSS3 and cross-browser compliance
• Experience with frameworks such as Boostrap or Foundation a plus
• Experience with jQuery is a must
• Experience TypeScript is a plus
• Knowledge of usability testing is an asset
• Excellent leadership, verbal and written communication skills

Apply by sending a resume and cover letter to Katie Paterson (kpaterson@innosphere.ca), or by using one of the links at this Tech & Design listing.

June 2016: Innovation and UX at Deloitte’s d { } Lab

d { } (pronounced “Dee Space”) is Deloitte¹s prototyping hub dedicated to accelerating the development of new products and services by leveraging emerging technologies. d { } opened in May 2015 in the Communitech Hub. Its team helps Deloitte intrapreneurs explore new business models using lean thinking and digital prototypes that are created by multidisciplinary, entrepreneurial teams possessing deep technical and design skills.

Join us for an informal overview of the moonshots, MVPs, and proof-of-concept projects undertaken by the lab in its first year. Norm Malloch, the lab’s Director, will discuss their experience in domains such as wearables/IoT, mobile collaborative experiences, and blockchain technologies. Come see the impact of design thinking and UX practices in a fast-paced innovation lab!

Please register for this free event

Thursday June 23, 2016
6:00 to 7:30 pm
Communitech Hub, 3rd floor theatre
[View on Google Maps]

May 2016: Case Study of Design Week with UNICEF Canada

Canada ranks at only 17th of 29 industrialized countries on overall child well-being, a fact that UNICEF is tired of. Over the past two years, UNICEF Canada has been exploring the possibility of opening an Observatory for Canada’s children that would aim to improve the well-being of kids in Canada. They started working with Kitchener’s Overlap to explore what this could look like and how it could work. There are many observatories for child well-being around the world, and when UNICEF Canada started out, they figured it would take the same form—an organization much like a think-tank that would monitor, analyze and report on the state of children in Canada.

So in October 2015, Overlap tested how this might work by running what they called Design Week with UNICEF Canada. For six days, Overlap brought together around 25 experts in child well-being, measurement, storytelling, and design to tackle questions like, “how might we measure child well-being in ways that are relevant to children and youth in the context of Canada?”

In this talk, Delaney Swanson of Overlap will describe what they were trying to achieve in the project, how they used Design Week to prototype part of the Observatory, what they learned from it, and where they are in the project now. This will touch on what they learned about facilitating design processes with non-designers, and the value of a design sprint in getting things done fast, especially in traditional institutions.

About the Speaker

Delaney Swanson is a service designer at Overlap, a research and strategy firm in Kitchener that uses human insights to improve services and systems, and integrate new ways of thinking into big institutions. She believes in the power of good design to influence behaviour through policy, services, physical spaces, and products. She thinks most of the time, real life gets in the way of the “ideal” behaviour most things are designed for—instead, she’d rather things be designed for the complexity of real people. Delaney helps organizations understand the needs and experiences of the people they serve (and employ), and align their strategy to meet these needs

Please register for this free event

Thursday May 26, 2016
5:30 to 7:00 pm
Area 151 at the Communitech Hub
[View on Google Maps]

April 2016: A Spring gathering, take 2

Back in March, we wrote about how sometimes our plans get tripped up, and we need to go with an alternative plan. And, of course, that alternative plan for March was tripped up by weather! Everything goes meta…

For our April edition, let’s try again to celebrate Spring with conversation and debate over a beer or two (or whatever drinks you might prefer). And we’ll hope that the wild Spring weather that we’ve had stays a little manageable.

Welcome Spring!

Please register for this free event

Thursday April 21, 2016
5:30 to 7:00 pm
Abe Erb Brewing
15 King Street South, Uptown Waterloo
Waterloo, ON